Particulate nature of matter

Solids, Liquids and & Gases

Solids

 Solids have a fixed volume, shape and they have a high density.
 The atoms vibrate in a position but cannot change location.
 The particles are packed very closely together in a fixed and regular pattern.

Liquids

 Liquids also have a fixed volume but adopt the shape of the container.
 They are generally less dense than solids (an exception is water), but much
denser than gases.
 The particles move and slide past each other which is why liquids adopt the
shape of the container and also why they are able to flow freely.

Gases

 Gases do not have a fixed volume, and, like liquids take up the shape of the
container.
 Gases have a very low density.
 Since there is a lot of space between the particles, gases can be compressed
into a very much smaller volume.
 The particles are far apart and move randomly and quickly in all direction.
 They collide with each other and with the sides of the container (this is how
pressure is created inside a container with a gas)
Exam Tip

 You can explain the difference in the physical properties of solids, liquids and
gases by referring to the arrangement and motion of particles – This is called the
kinetic theory of matter.

State changes

Melting

 Melting is when a solid changes into a liquid.

 The process requires heat energy which transforms into kinetic energy, allowing
the particles to move.
 Melting occurs at a specific temperature called the melting point (m.p.)

Boiling

 Boiling is when a liquid changes into a gas.

 Boiling requires heat which causes bubbles of gas to form below the surface of a
liquid allowing for liquid particles to escape from the surface and within the liquid.
 It occurs at a specific temperature known as the boiling point (b.p.)

Freezing
  Freezing is when a liquid changes into a solid.
 This is the reverse of melting and occurs at exactly the same temperature as the
melting, hence the melting point and freezing point of a pure substance are the
same.
 Water, for example, freezes and melts at 0°C.
 It requires a significant decrease in temperature (or loss of thermal energy) and
occurs at specific temperature.

Evaporation

 Evaporation occurs when a liquid changes into a gas and occurs over a range of
temperatures.
 Evaporation only occurs at the surface of the liquid where high energy particles
can escape from the liquid’s surface at low temperatures, below the b.p. of the
liquid.
 The larger the surface area and the warmer the liquid surface, the more quickly a
liquid can evaporate.

Condensation

 Condensation occurs when a gas changes into a liquid on cooling and it takes
place over a range of temperatures.
 When a gas is cooled its particles lose energy and when they bump into each
other they lack the energy to bounce away again, instead they group together to
form a liquid.

Sublimation
State changes & the Kinetic Theory

 When substances are heated, the particles absorb the thermal energy which is
converted into kinetic energy.
 This is the basis of the kinetic theory of matter.
 Heating a solid causes its particles to vibrate more and as the temperature
increases, they vibrate so much that the solid expands until the structure breaks
and the solid melts.
 On further heating, the now liquid substance expands more and some particles at
the surface gain sufficient energy to overcome the intermolecular forces and
evaporate.
 When the b.p. temperature is reached, all the particles gain enough energy to
escape and the liquid boils.
 These changes in shape can be shown on a graph called a heating curve.
 Cooling down a gas has the reverse effect and this would be called the cooling
curve.
 These curves are used to show how changes in temperature affect change of
states.
EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES

Mixtures, Solutions and solvents

Mixtures

 A mixture is a combination of two more substance physically put together.

 A mixture contains more than one substance. The substances are just mixed
together, and not chemically combined. For example:
a. air is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and small amounts of other gases
Solutions

 When you mix sugar with water, the sugar seems to disappear.
 That is because its particles spread all through the water particles, like this:

 The sugar has dissolved in the water, giving a mixture called a solution.
 Sugar is the solute, and water is the solvent:
solute + solvent = solution
 Not everything dissolves so easily
 Now think about chalk. If you mix chalk powder with water, most of the powder
eventually sinks to the bottom.
 You can get it out again by filtering.
 Why is it so different for sugar and chalk? Because their particles are very
different!
 How easily a substance dissolves depends on the particles in it.
 Look at the examples in this table:

 So silver nitrate is much more soluble than sugar – but potassium nitrate is a lot
less soluble than sugar.
 It all depends on the particles.
  Look at calcium hydroxide. It is only very slightly or sparingly soluble compared
with the compounds above it. Its solution is called limewater.
 Now look at the last two substances in the table. They are usually called
insoluble since so very little dissolves.
 So sugar is more soluble in hot water than in cold water.
 A soluble solid usually gets more soluble as the temperature rises.
 A solution is called saturated when it can dissolve no more solute, at that
temperature.

Water is not the only solvent

 Water is the world’s most common solvent. A solution in water is called an
aqueous solution (from aqua, the Latin word for water).
 But many other solvents are used in industry and about the house, to dissolve
substances that are insoluble in water. For example:

 All three of these solvents evaporate easily at room temperature – they are
volatile.
 This means that glues and paints dry easily.
 Aftershave feels cool because ethanol cools the skin when it evaporates.
 A pure substance has no particles of any other substance mixed with it.
 In real life, very few substances are 100% pure.
 For example tap water contains small amounts of many different particles (such
as calcium ions and chloride ions).
 The particles in it are not usually harmful – and some are even good for you.
 Distilled water is much purer than tap water, but still not 100% pure.
  For example it may contain particles of gases, dissolved from the air.

Does purity matter?

 Often it does not matter if a substance is not pure.
 We wash in tap water, without thinking too much about what is in it.
 But sometimes purity is very important. If you are making a new medical drug, or
a flavouring for food, you must make sure it contains nothing that could harm
people.
 An unwanted substance, mixed with the substance you want, is called an
impurity.

How can you tell if a substance is pure?

 Chemists use some complex methods to check purity. But there is one simple
method you can use in the lab: you can check melting and boiling points.
 A pure substance has a definite, sharp, melting point and boiling point.
 These are different for each substance.
 You can look them up in tables.

 When a substance contains an impurity:

o its melting point falls and its boiling point rises
o it melts and boils over a range of temperatures, not sharply.
 The more impurity there is:
o the bigger the change in melting and boiling points
o the wider the temperature range over which melting and boiling occur.

Separation: the first step in obtaining a pure substance

 When you carry out a reaction, you usually end up with a mixture of substances.
 Then you have to separate the one you want.
  The table below shows some separation methods. These can give quite pure
substances. For example when you filter off a solid, and rinse it well with distilled
water, you remove a lot of impurity. But it is just not possible to remove every tiny
particle of impurity, in the school lab.

Method of separation Used to separate

1. Crystallisation A solute from its solution
2. Simple distillation Different substances from
a solution
3. Paper A solvent from a solution
chromatography
4. Fractional distillation Liquids from each other
5. Evaporation A solute from its solution
6. Filtration A solid from a liquid

 Which method should you use? It depends on whether the solid is dissolved, and
how its solubility changes with temperature.

Filtration method

 For example, chalk is insoluble in water. So it is easy to separate by filtering.

 The chalk is trapped in the filter paper, while the water passes through.
 The trapped solid is called the residue. The water is the filtrate.
  You can obtain many solids from their solutions by letting crystals form.
 The process is called crystallisation.
 It works because soluble solids tend to be less soluble at lower temperatures.

By evaporating all the solvent

 For some substances, the solubility changes very little as the temperature falls.
 So crystallisation does not work for these. Salt is an example.

 obtain salt from an aqueous solution, you need to keep heating the solution, to
evaporate the water.
 When there is only a little water left, the salt will start to appear.
 Heat carefully until it is dry.

Separating a mixture of two solids

 To separate two solids, you could choose a solvent that will dissolve just one of
them.
 For example, water dissolves salt but not sand. So you could separate a mixture
of salt and sand like this:
1. Add water to the mixture, and stir. The salt dissolves.
2. Filter the mixture. The sand is trapped in the filter paper, but the salt solution
passes through.
3. Rinse the sand with water, and dry it in an oven.
4. Evaporate the water from the salt solution, to give dry salt.
 Water could not be used to separate salt and sugar, because it dissolves both.
 But you could use ethanol, which dissolves sugar but not salt.
 Ethanol is flammable, so should be evaporated over a water bath, as shown
here.
Simple distillation
 This is a way to obtain the solvent from a solution.
 The apparatus is shown on the right. It could be used to obtain water from salt
water, for example. Like this:
1. Heat the solution in the flask. As it boils, water vapour rises into the
condenser, leaving salt behind.
2. The condenser is cold, so the vapour condenses to water in it.
3. The water drips into the beaker. It is called distilled water. It is almost pure.

 You could get drinking water from seawater, in this way.

 Many countries in the Middle East obtain drinking water by distilling seawater in
giant distillation plants.

Fractional distillation
 This is used to separate a mixture of liquids from each other.
 It makes use of their different boiling points. You could use it to separate a
mixture of ethanol and water, for example.
 These are the steps:
1. Heat the mixture in the flask. At about 78 °C, the ethanol begins to boil. Some
water evaporates too. So a mixture of ethanol and water vapours rises up the
column.
2. The vapours condense on the glass beads in the column, making them hot.
 3. When the beads reach about 78 °C, ethanol vapour no longer condenses on
them. Only the water vapour does. So water drips back into the flask. The
ethanol vapour goes into the condenser.
4. There it condenses. Pure liquid ethanol drips into the beaker.
5. Eventually, the thermometer reading rises above 78 °C – a sign that all the
ethanol has gone. So you can stop heating.

Fractional distillation in industry

Fractional distillation is very important in industry. It is used:
1. in the petroleum industry, to refine crude oil into petrol and other groups of
compounds. The oil is heated and the vapours rise to different heights, up a tall
steel fractionating column.
2. in producing ethanol. The ethanol is made by fermentation, using sugar cane or
other plant material. It is separated from the fermented mixture by fractional
distillation. Ethanol is used as a solvent, and as car fuel.
3. to separate the gases in air. The air is cooled until it is liquid, then warmed up.
The gases boil off one by one.
Chromatography
Paper chromatography
 This method can be used to separate a mixture of substances. For example, you
could use it to find out how many different dyes there are in black ink:

1. Place a drop of black ink in the centre of some filter paper. Let it dry. Then add
three or four more drops on the same spot, in the same way.

2. Now drip water onto the ink spot, one drop at a time. The ink slowly spreads out
and separates into rings of different colours.

3. Suppose there are three rings: yellow, red and blue. This shows that the ink
contains three dyes, coloured yellow, red and blue.

 The dyes in the ink have different solubilities in water. So they travel across the
paper at different rates. (The most soluble one travels fastest.)
 That is why they separate into rings. The filter paper with the coloured rings is
called a chromatogram. (Chroma means colour.)
 Paper chromotography can also be used to identify substances.
 For example, mixture X is thought to contain substances A, B, C, and D, which
are all soluble in propanone. You could check the mixture like this:
 1. Prepare concentrated solutions of X, A, B, C, and D, in propanone.
2. Place a spot of each along a line, on chromatography paper.
3. Label them.
4. Stand the paper in a little propanone, in a covered glass tank.
5. The solvent rises up the paper.
6. When it’s near the top, remove the paper.
 X has separated into three spots.
 Two are at the same height as A and B, so X must contain substances A and
B.
 Does it also contain C and D?

NB - Note that you must use a pencil to draw the line on the chromatography paper. If
you use a biro or felt-tipped pen, the ink will run.

More about paper chromatography

How paper chromatography works

 Paper chromatography depends on how the substances in a mixture interact with
the chromatography paper and the solvent.
NB - The more soluble a substance is in the solvent, the further it will travel up
the chromatography paper.

Making use of paper chromatography

You can use paper chromatography to:
1. identify a substance
2. separate mixtures of substances
3. purify a substance, by separating it from its impurities.

Example: Identify substances in a colourless mixture

 Previously paper chromatography was used to identify coloured substances.
 Test-tubes A – E on the right below contain five colourless solutions of amino
acids, dissolved in water.
 The solution in A contains several amino acids. The other solutions contain just
one each.

Your task is to identify all the amino acids in A – E.

1. Place a spot of each solution along a line drawn in pencil on slotted
chromatography paper, as shown below. (The purpose of the slots is to keep the
samples separate.)

2. Label each spot in pencil at the top of the paper.

3. Place a suitable solvent in the bottom of a beaker. (For amino acids, a mixture of
water, ethanoic acid and butanol is suitable.)
 4. Roll the chromatography paper into a cylinder and place it in the beaker. Cover
the beaker.
5. The solvent rises up the paper. When it has almost reached the top, remove the
paper.
6. Mark a line in pencil on it, to show where the solvent reached. (You can’t tell
where the amino acids are, because they are colourless.)
7. Put the paper in an oven to dry out.
8. Next spray it with a locating agent to make the amino acids show up. Ninhydrin
is a good choice. (Use it in a fume cupboard!) After spraying, heat the paper in
the oven for 10 minutes. The spots turn purple.
9. Mark a pencil dot at the centre of each spot. Measure from the base line to each
dot, and to the line showing the final solvent level.

10. Now work out the Rf value for each amino acid. Like this:

Rf value = distance moved by amino acid/distance moved by solvent

 Finally, look up Rf tables to identify the amino acids.

 The method works because: the Rf value of a compound is always the same
for a given solvent, under the same conditions.
The key ideas in chromatography.
  Much of chromatography is detective work. You have already met paper
chromatography. There are many other kinds too. But the key ideas are always
the same.
You need two phases:
 a non-moving or stationary phase, such as filter paper
 a moving or mobile phase. This consists of the mixture you want to separate,
dissolved in a solvent.
 The substances in the mixture separate because each has different levels of
attraction to the solvent and the stationary phase. Look at the diagram on the
right.
 You can then identify each separated substance. Depending on the technique
you use, you can also collect them.
Other uses
A. Chromatography can be used on a small scale in the lab, or on a very large scale
in industry. For example it is used on a small scale to:
1. identify substances
2. check the purity of substances
3. help in crime detection
4. identify pollutants in air, or in samples of river water.
B. It is used on a large scale to:
1. separate pure substances (for example for making medical drugs or food
flavourings) from tanks of reaction mixtures, in factories
2. separate individual compounds from the groups of compounds (fractions)
obtained in refining petroleum.

Elements, Mixtures & Compounds

 All substances can be classified into one of these three types.

Element

 A substance made of atoms that all contain the same number of protons and
cannot be split into anything simpler.
  A substance made from the same kind of repeating atoms.
 There are 118 elements found in the periodic table.

Compound

 A pure substance made of two or more elements chemically combined/joined.

 There is an unlimited number of compounds.
 Compounds cannot be separated into their elements by physical means.
 Examples of compounds are copper (II) sulphate (CuSO4), calcium carbonate
(CaCO3), carbon dioxide (CO2)

Mixture

 A combination of two or more substances (elements and/or compounds) that are

not chemically joined together (but physically joined)
 Mixtures can be separated by physical methods such as filtration or evaporation.
 Examples are sand and water, oil and water, sulphur powder and iron filings.

The signs of a chemical change

 When you heat a mixture of iron and sulfur, a chemical change takes place.
 The iron and sulfur atoms bond together to form a compound.
 You can tell when a chemical change has taken place, by these three signs:

1. One or more new chemical substances are formed.

  You can describe the change by a word equation like this:
iron + sulfur  iron(II) sulfide
 The ‘+’ means reacts with, and the ‘’ means to form.
 The new substances usually look different from the starting substances.
 For example sulfur is yellow, but iron(II) sulfide is black.
2. Energy is taken in or given out, during the reaction.
 Energy was needed to start off the reaction between iron and sulfur, in the form
of heat.
 But the reaction gave out heat once it began – the mixture glowed brightly.

3. The change is usually difficult to reverse.

 You would need to carry out several reactions to get the iron and sulfur back
from iron sulphide. (But it can be done!)
A chemical change is usually called a chemical reaction.

Compound Mixture
 It is a single substance  It contains two or more substances
 The composition is always the same  The composition can vary
 It involves chemical change when the  No chemical change takes place
new substance is formed when a mixture is formed
 The properties are very different to  The properties are those of the
those of the component elements individual elements/compounds
 The components can only be  The components may be separated
separated by one or more chemical quite easily by physical means
reaction

Atomic structure

 All substances are made of tiny particles of matter called atoms which are the
building blocks of all matter.
  Each atom is made of subatomic particles called protons, neutrons and
electrons.
 The protons and neutrons are located at the centre of the, which is called the
nucleus.
 The electrons move very fast around the nucleus in orbital paths called shells.
 The mass of electrons is negligible; hence the mass of an atom is contained
within the nucleus where the protons and neutrons are located.

The atomic structure

Protons, Neutrons & Electrons

 The structure of an atom is so tiny that we cannot really compare their masses in
units such as kilograms and grams, so a unit called the relative atomic mass is
used.
1
 One relative atomic mass unit is equal to 12 𝑡ℎ the mass of a carbon-12 atom.

 All other elements are measured relative to the mass of a carbon-12 atom, so
relative atomic mass has no units.
 Hydrogen for example has a mass of 1, meaning that 12 atoms of hydrogen
would have exactly the same mass as 1 atom of carbon.
 The relative mass and charge of the subatomic particles are shown below:

Table of subatomic particles

Particle Relative Charge
 mass
Proton 1 +1
Neutron 1 0 (neutral)
Electron 1/1840 -1
Defining the proton

 The atomic number (proton number) is the number of protons in the nucleus of
an atom.
 The symbol for atomic number is Z
 It is also the number of electrons present in a neutral atom and determines the
position of the element on the periodic table.

Defining the mass number

 The nucleon number (or mass number) is the total number of protons and
neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.
 The symbol for nucleon number is A.
 The nucleon number minus the proton number gives the number of neutrons in
the nucleus of an atom
Number of Neutrons = A – Z
 Note that protons and neutrons can collectively be called nucleons.
 The atomic number and mass number of an element can be shown using atomic
notation.
 The periodic table shows the elements together with their atomic (proton)
number at the top and relative atomic number at the bottom.
Deducing the proton, neutrons & electrons

 The atomic number of an atom and ions determines which element it is.
 Therefore, all atoms and ions of the same element have the same number of
protons in the nucleus
 For example lithium has an atomic number of 3 (three protons) whereas
beryllium has atomic number of 4 (4 protons)
 The number of protons equals the atomic number.
 The number of protons of an unknown element can be calculated by using its
mass number and number of neutrons.

Mass number = number of protons + number of neutrons

Number of protons = mass number – number of neutrons

Finding the electrons

 An atom is neutral and therefore has the same number of protons and electrons.

Finding the electrons

 An atom is neutral and therefore has the same number of protons and electrons.
Finding the neutrons

 The mass and atomic numbers can be used to find the number of neutrons in
ions and atoms:
Number of neutrons = mass number – number of protons

Example

 Determine the number of protons, electrons and neutrons in an atom of an

element X with atomic number 29 and mass number 63.

Answer
Number of neutrons = A – Z
Number of neutrons = 63 – 29 = 34

Isotopes

 Refers to atoms of the same element with the same number of protons but
different number of neutrons
 Only sodium atoms have 11 protons.
 One can identify an atom by the number of protons in it.
 All carbon atoms have 6 protons. But not all carbon atoms are identical; some
have more neutrons than others.

 The three atoms above are called isotopes of carbon.

 Isotopes are atoms of the same element, with different numbers of
neutrons.
 Most elements have isotopes for example calcium has six, magnesium has three,
iron has four, and chlorine has two.
The mass spectrometer
 How do we know isotopes exist?
 They were first discovered by scientists using apparatus called a mass spectrometer.
 The first mass spectrometer was built by the British scientist Francis Aston in 1919 and
enabled scientists to compare the relative masses of atoms accurately for the first time.

 A vacuum exists inside the mass spectrometer.

 A sample of the vapour of the element is injected into the ionisation chamber
where it is bombarded by electrons.
 The collisions which take place between these electrons and the injected atoms
cause an electron to be lost from the atom, which becomes a positive ion with a
+1 charge.
 These positive ions are then accelerated towards a negatively charged plate, in
the acceleration area.
 The spectrometer is set up to ensure that when the ions leave the acceleration
area they all have the same kinetic energy, regardless of the mass of the ions.
 This means that the lighter ions travel faster than the heavier ones, and
effectively separates the ions according to their mass.
 Having left the acceleration area, the time for the ions to reach the detector is
recorded.
 The detector counts the number of each of the ions which fall upon it and so a
measure of the percentage abundance of each isotope is obtained.
 A typical mass spectrum for chlorine is shown below.
Relative atomic mass
 The average mass of a large number of atoms of an element is called its relative
atomic mass (symbol Ar).
 This quantity takes into account the percentage abundance of all the isotopes of an
element which exist.
 In 1961 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommended
that the standard used for the Ar scale was carbon-12.
 An atom of carbon-12 was taken to have a mass of 12 amu.
 The Ar of an element is the average mass of the naturally occurring atoms of an element
on a scale where 12C has a mass of exactly 12 units:
Some isotopes are radioactive
 A carbon-14 atom behaves in a strange way - It is radioactive.
 That means its nucleus is unstable - sooner or later the atom breaks down
naturally or decays, giving out radiation in the form of rays and particles, plus a
large amount of energy.
 Like carbon, a number of other elements have radioactive isotopes – or
radioisotopes – that occur naturally, and eventually decay.
 But the other two isotopes of carbon (like most natural isotopes) are non-
radioactive.

Harmful effects of Radiation

 If the radiation from radioisotopes gets into your body, it will kill body cells.
 A large dose causes radiation sickness.
 Victims:
 1. vomit a lot
2. feel really tired
3. Their hair falls out
4. Their gums bleed, and they die within weeks.
 Even small doses of radiation, over a long period, will cause cancer.

Making use of radioisotopes

 Radioisotopes are dangerous – but they are also useful. For example:

1. To check for leaks

 Engineers can check oil and gas pipes for leaks by adding radioisotopes to
the oil or gas.
 If a Geiger counter detects radiation outside the pipe, it means there is a
leak.
 Radioisotopes used in this way are called tracers.

2. To treat cancer
 Radioisotopes can cause cancer.
 But they are also used in radiotherapy to cure cancer – because the
gamma rays in radiation kill cancer cells more readily than healthy cells.
 Cobalt-60 is usually used for this.
 The beam of gamma rays is aimed carefully at the site of the cancer in the
body.
3. To kill germs and bacteria
 Gamma rays kill germs too.
 So they are used to sterilise syringes and other disposable medical
equipment.
 They also kill the bacteria that cause food to decay.
 So in many countries, foods like vegetables, fruit, spices, and meat, are
treated with a low dose of radiation.
 Cobalt - 60 and cesium - 137 are used for this.
 4. Carbon-dating
 Our bodies contain some carbon-14, taken in through food.
 When we die, we take no more in - but the carbon-14 atoms continue to
decay.
 So scientists can tell the age of ancient remains by measuring the
radioactivity from them.
Electronic configuration

 We can represent the structure of the atom in two ways: using diagrams called
electron shell diagrams or by writing out a special notation called the electronic
configuration (or electronic structure or electron distribution)

Electron shell diagrams

 Electrons orbit the nucleus in shells (or energy levels) and each shell has a
different amount of energy associated with it.
 The further away from the nucleus, the more energy a shell has.
 Electrons fill the shell closest to the nucleus.
 When the shell becomes full of electrons, additional electrons have to be added
to the next shell.
 The 1st shell can hold 2 electrons.
 The 2nd shell can hold 8 electrons.
 For the 1st 20 elements, once the 3rd shell has 8 electrons, the fourth shell begins
to fill up.
 The outermost shell of an atom is called the valence shell and an atom is much
more stable if it can manage to completely fill this with electrons.

A simplified model showing the electron shells.

  The arrangement of electrons in shells can also be explained using numbers.
 Instead of drawing electron shell diagrams, the number of electrons in each
electron shell can be written down, separated by dots.
 This notation is called the electronic configuration (or electronic structure)
 For example Carbon has 6 electrons, 2 in the 1st shell and 4 in the 2nd shell.
 Its electronic configuration is 2,4
 Electronic configuration can also be written for ions.
 For example, a sodium atom has 11 electrons, a sodium ion has lost 1 electron,
therefore has 10 electrons; 2 in the 1st shell and 2nd shell – its electronic
configuration is 2,8

The electronic configuration of the first 20 elements

Note:
  Although the 3rd shell can hold up to 18 electrons, the filling of the shells
follows a more complicated pattern after potassium and calcium.
 For these two elements, the third shell holds 8 and the remaining electrons
(for reasons of stability) occupy the fourth shell 1st before the 3rd shell.

Exam tips

 You need to be able to write the electronic configuration of the first twenty
elements and their ions.
 You may see electronic configurations using ‘full stops’ or ‘+’ signs instead of
commas.
 You would not be penalized for using full stops.